In quantitative analysis of pathological images, the quantification of features can be carried out on single cells before classifying them by classification algorithms. However, the cell shape on fluorescent images can have a jagged profile and the inside of cell body may not be homogenously filled, for example, as shown in FIGS. 1A and 1B.
Accurate cell body extraction can help quantify cell features for further pathological analysis, for example, analysis of cancer cells. However, the traditional morphological operations are generally not applicable to such cell images because they either merge separated cells or delete important cell regions during splitting of a cell.